Man Builds Chopper Using Alligator Body Parts

Usually, the scariest thing about a chopper barreling down the highways is the big, burley, short-tempered guy riding it--but atop the "GatorBike," made with the skin and skull of a real alligator, even the scrawniest, meekest of riders will seem menacing. You might think that the creator of such a bike would be equally grim, and probably not an animal lover--but you'd be wrong. In fact, the bike was built by the owner of a wildlife rehab in Florida, and he's raffling it off to raise money for his center. According to a report from The Daily Telegraph, the bike's creator, Jim Jablon, was donated the alligator after it had been killed by state officials. Instead of letting the big reptile's body go to waste through the natural processes of decomposition, he had other ideas:

I thought, 'Why not put it to good use?

And "good use" he put it to.

Jablon mounted the animal's skin and skull on the body of a custom-built chopper, he affectionately refers to as "GatorBike."

In order to raise funds for his wildlife rehabilitation center, which specializes in the rescue of exotic pets, Jablon began selling raffle tickets to folks who would like to win the bike. With a thousand tickets available for $100 each, the chopper could provide a windfall for the center.

As if the alligator-adorned chopper weren't strange enough, the winner will be decided by a 22-year-old model drawing names from a swimming pool full of alligators. Dangerous? Jablon doesn't think so:

We're not going to tie a chicken to her or anything.

No matter who wins the bike, hopefully the biggest winner from the raffle will be the animals that benefit from Jablon's wildlife rehabilitation center. But, for whoever does walk away with the "GatorBike," one thing's for certain--from now on they'll be using the reply "in a while, crocodile" a lot more often.